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Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Bad signal: BSNL’s salary revision linked to PSU’s profitability: CMD

THIS is not a good piece of news for the tens of thousands of employees of the state-owned telecom major, BSNL with its chairman and managing director (CMD) Anupam Shrivastava last week sending a strong message to its employees that there won’t be any revision in salary next year unless the company turns profitable. "This is the most crucial year in the history of BSNL because 2017 will be the year when our salaries... are going to be revised as a third PRC (Pay Review Committee), and let me tell you ... unless we are profitable the salary is not going to be revised," Shrivastava was quoted as telling a news agency. Speaking after launching BSNL Mobile Data Offload service in Karnataka, he said the organisation has to be made profitable.
Referring to Air India and ITI, he said that the two ailing PSUs couldn’t revise their salaries due to poor financial health.
Shrivastava said the next year is a very important year and we have to make sure that this year our profit and loss account looks good.
"I have instructed all my IFAs that their prime duty is to look towards the revenue. Gone are the days when we were sitting and only signing on the file. No, revenue is your prime responsibility," he said sounding quite tough.
He said Karnataka Circle is not doing comparatively good, and he has got commitment from the senior officials that before March 31 they will make the circle "again profitable".
BSNL after about four years of losses posted an operating profit of Rs 672 crore for the financial year 2014-15 compared to an operating loss of Rs 691 crore in the previous fiscal.
Describing 2014-15 as the turnaround year for BSNL as the telecom major came back to operational profit of Rs 672 crore, Shrivastava said that with the support of all the officers and employees the PSU will increase the profit and within another two to three years (2018-19) it will achieve net profit also. He said BSNL’s operational profit is of very great significance as its salary expense is whopping Rs 15,000 crore, which is more than the top line of many private and government PSUs.
The PSU has not been able to meet such huge staff expenses. He expressed the hope that BSNL is left with enough cash to do the operations and maintain on our own and yet come up with a profit of Rs 672 crore.